March means the start of ozone season

A high level of ozone blanketed Louisville with a bluish smog in 1984.(Photo: File photo by Bill Kight, THE COURIER-JOURNAL. June 4, 1984)

A psychologist friend once told me about a teenager who was asked to name the seasons of the year on an IQ test, and he responded something like this: Deer season, rabbit season, squirrel season.

The point was that to different people, such an open ended question could yield different results that may not reflect upon brain power.

I've been on the environment beat long enough in Louisville that if someone asked me to name the seasons, I'd certainly identify "ozone season" as one of them.

Sure as March rolls around, the Louisville metro area is back in its ozone season, which started March 1 and runs through October, and reflects how bright sunshine, heat, little wind and pollution from cars and industry can cook up lung-irritating ozone this time of year. You know, smog.

Ozone used to be really really bad, as the photo, above, from 1984 illustrated. The C-J photographer who took it noted the sky was actually a bluish color.

Our air can still be unhealthy, especially to tens of thousands of area residents with lung problems. And during ozone season, that means different monitoring and reporting requirements for industry and regulators alike and in the past it can also mean different pollution control measures.

To the public, it means as the temperatures warm, air quality could worsen and we could be getting air quality alerts again from state regulators in Kentucky and Indiana. Typically, we can see problems with ozone and tiny particles of soot, which can lodge deep in the lungs and get into the blood, and you can track conditions as they develop

Everyone around here is ready for spring and summer, after a long, cold and snowy winter. But the one-month weather outlook shows a greater chance of continued cool temperatures. That could keep bad air days at bay.

But look at the May-June outlook, where it predicts warmer than normal temperatures across the south and most of Kentucky; And there's also an increased chance of warmer than normal temperatures for June through August. For that entire May through August period, the Climate Prediction Center doesn't see anything out of the ordinary for our precipitation.

Last year the Louisville area pitched the perfect game of ozone monitoring -- not a single time when the level of ozone topped the federal standard. Still, there were 23 days of elevated ozone the year before, enough to cause the EPA to slap us with a violation.

Because the EPA looks at three year averages, regulators will be hoping to have another good showing in 2014 to help offset the crappy air of 2012 in the eyes of the federal officials who determine our air quality status.

The long term forecasts, if they pan out, suggest to me we may not be as fortunate in this year's ozone season as we were last year.